What are 10 things YOU know to be true?

I was interested and intrigued by Sarah's '10 things you know to be true' list exercise, particularly with the pattern she observed in hearing others; that you would continuously see items exact and opposite to your own, items you've never heard of, or thought about before in exactly that light.

I'm fascinated by our definitions of what we consider to be 'truth', and the disputes between our definitions.

So I propose we post a couple lists of our own here, and experience our agreements (and disagreements), learn some new ideas and lines of thought. Personally, I think it best to write your own list BEFORE reading the ones posted here to avoid influence ;)

I hope a couple people will be interested in participating in this miniature project. And, hey, if you see something in someone's list you'd like to ask about, or learn more about, or debate. . .we now have the TED conversation platform to make that possible.

My list:

1. These are the most exciting times in which we could ever hope to be alive which have already occurred.
2. Too often, we allow inertia to control our actions.
3. Everyone should travel.
4. 'Because that's the way things are' is not a valid reason.
5. Whenever you say 'I had no choice', you're lying.
6. It is possible to have an honest and even pleasant relationship with someone you do not like.
7. Loving someone or something heart and soul does not necessarily make it good for you, or them, or it.
8. There are ideas and inventions yet to come which will make into reality what we consider to be fantasy today.
9. Everyone has at least one story worth hearing.
10. My truth is not final.

Mar 21 2011:
0 : as a probabilistic thinker, I cannot say I know anything to be 100% true...but I think it's true:
1 to 4 : 0th to 3rd law of thermodynamics
5 : If you want to understand the world, you cannot go without science nor skepticism
6 : You don't need to understand the world to have a good life
7 : Artificial intelligence will become smarter than human intelligence
8 : I will die
9 : I feel connected
10: This was fun to do

I'm not a singularity adept... I came to that conclusion independently (well, at least before knowing Kurzweils point of view). I don't agree with Ray completely, but from a computational point of vieuw,

@ Anna
I don't see any laws of nature preventing a form of artificial intelligence to arise... If we start to program self learning algorithms, they will, given enough computation power and memory, be smarter than human intelligence.
By human intelligence I mean (more or less) what we test in IQ tests, or (fuzzy) what laymen think is 'smart'
so smarter would mean: higher IQ, and better at making decisions that are in function of the pre-stated desires (like happiness, wealth, social status, sexual success, satisfaction, gratification, avoiding pain and injury, pleasures, justice, health,... ,...)

Mar 25 2011:
But Christophe, I am not sure that all human intelligence can be described with algorithms, for example emotional intelligence (as Lee mentions), empathy, the kind of creative genius that creates mind blowing art....
...and if the computers are created by humans, maybe they will be kind of human as well? Or the distinction might become more unclear, what is man and what is machine....

Apr 1 2011:
Why, might I ask, would you want to live forever? To become some sort of robotic superhuman that would have to live through our progressively darker times? To live forever would be so unnatural and frightening.

Mar 29 2011:
I don't see how dying could be a "probably". Unless we somehow advance so quickly that we are able to defeat death, which I don't believe will ever happen. And even if it does, I know I won't be a part of it. Like the great Freddie Mercury said, "Who wants to live forever?"

Mar 29 2011:
I agree with Anna on the artificial intelligence subject. AI may be able to surpass human intelligence in terms of computation - numbers - because that is something that is concrete and absolute, and the machines can be programmed to figure those things out themselves. But there are aspects of humanity, of human intelligence, that I don't think a machine could ever truly possess. Sure, a machine can make art, but, like Anna said, can it really feel it? As humans, when we create or look at a piece of art we can truly feel something, and I don't think a machine could ever do that. We can look at nature, at natural wonders, at other people, and see the beauty in the world around us and feel it. We can create music that can invoke and purge the soul. A machine could play music, but it could never truly understand it without a human brain. The one thing I never understood is why scientists try so hard to recreate the human brain in non-human entities. Why do we need robots that can perform every action for us? We already have amazing robots, why do we need to create something that will one day possibly be able to pass us in computational and mathematical intelligence? We will not be able to distinguish between man and machine, and all of this is just a disaster waiting to happen. The human brain is something that can never be truly recreated - it is too complex and even we will never be able to fully understand our own intelligence. We can feel, emote, build relationships with those around us. Only natural, living life can do this. Robots may be able to to an extent, but never in the same way. There is no such thing as a robot genius or a robot prodigy. But there are human versions of these. Anyway tell me what you think.

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for example: If I were to hit a wall:
I assume that there is a possibility that I'm under an unknown drug inhibiting my sensory perception in my fist.
Or my food contained a neurotoxin
Or I suddenly became able to ignore pain sensitivity completely
...
After I hit it (and got the pain experience)... I could imagine unlikely reasons why the causality could -in principle- be flawed... but most often I treat 99.99999% likely as sure...

Mar 29 2011:
Mark,
Our "senses" are constructs of our brain, which deceives us constantly, relentlessly. Everything we think we "know" is a product of the filters that protect us from the barrage of information we are assaulted with every minute of every day.

Mar 29 2011:
I agree on No.5, we can never learn about the world with sicence if this world was not designed in a scientific way. But we could reason out from that fact that there is a super intelligent being above this world which we can not fully learn about because of our limitations. BUT (again), there is a great possibility to understand much of "it" if it reveal itself. It did.

Apr 6 2011:
I while back I think I saw Dennet on Ted talking about conscience and a bit about how the nodes inside the Internet looks a lot like the network of nerves inside our brains, what do you think about that, is Internet alive, can we communicate with it :)?

Apr 7 2011:
I think the internet pretty much behaves as an organism... And there are parallels with the brain...

BUT, most (probably all) agents (with highly developed intelligence) on the net are human. They feed from and to the net. So the bigger creature (hive), is constituted by us...

I think there are already replicons and quasi-life like entities on the net (computer viruses, worms, trojans,...) but they seem very primitive...
I have no idea whether there are already surviving, replicating and mutating colonies on the cloud, but I gather they might appear...

The algorithms on the net are getting smarter, and our communication seems to have filters, so we are already directed by the net towards the things that might interest us, and give us pleasure... But still, most of this is done by humans, not algorithms...

But see if this works:
"HEY INTERNET, IF YOU READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS, COULD YOU LET ME KNOW AND MAKE AN APPOINTMENT FOR A CHAT" (I would try to find proof to see whether it's not some clever person tricking me though... )

May 2 2011:
"HEY INTERNET, IF YOU READ AND UNDERSTAND THIS, COULD YOU LET ME KNOW AND MAKE AN APPOINTMENT FOR A CHAT" (I would try to find proof to see whether it's not some clever person tricking me though... )

May 2 2011:
For #7 I would say that AI will definitely surpass us in logical intelligence. The programing used for it is based on logic and will continue to be. However, there may be ways in which humans will remain more intelligent. Such as emotional intelligence as others have stated. Also things that have no relevance to anything but us. Then again if humans start using 100% of our brain capacity who knows?

"The algorithms on the net are getting smarter, and our communication seems to have filters, so we are already directed by the net towards the things that might interest us, and give us pleasure... But still, most of this is done by humans, not algorithms..."

If there is AI what will it direct us to see?

Can we program a universal stop code now?

Can we program a question into AI that all AI knows it to be answered in one way? That way there could be a tell of if an AI is associating or if it's a human? (this could be the proof you seek when the internet responds to your request for a chat)

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Do you have a way around the self-defeating nature of relative truth?
Saying that all truth is relative is a non-relative statement.
Also do you believe there is no objective truth and that people do not have the means to discover it, or do you believe that x proposition can be both true and false at the same time or at different times?

Sorry I'm not bashing your views or anything I just tend towards the absolutist/hardline/moderate skepticism side of the debate and interested in your respose :D

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May 3 2011:
Sorry if I was if my scentences were confusing in anyway but no the counter-argument to relativism I was attempting to express was a logically self defeating statement that resides in relitivisms core argument. Basically relativism contends that all truth is relative and that there is no such thing is an absolute statement/law/universal or maxim or that any absolute statement/universal/law or maxin is false or is not the only truth. In turn does this not make the core reletavist proposition (that ALL absolute statements are false) false by it's own definition? My appologies if that was hard to follow. Conciseness has never been my forte.

Secondly I agree with you about falsifiability and I assume you are using that argument under the same conditions of Karl Popper.

However, I do contend your final statement that "x proposition can be both true and false at different contexts and times. This statement justifies almost anything as culturally relative. For example, William Wilberforce put forward a bill for the abolition of slavery twice, first it was rejected, then it was accepted. A culturally relative condition Wilberforce was wrong in opposing slavery in the first place but was subsequently right when the bill was accepted. I just do not understant how ,logically, a proposition can be both true and false.

Another example: The world was once believed to be flat and under the context of the time (and your condition) the people of the world were correct in believing that the world was flat, this was the truth. However, when people migrated to the belief that the world is round somehow belief in the world being flat would be false.

May 4 2011:
Wait! All relativism is relative and all absolutism is absolute right? Yes paradox, but even more than that. I do honestly belive that both of those categories are inherently false. Things do change as Pab points out, there is truth that is finally true. We understand as humans what we understand. However that doesn't make it true, only understandable. Truth is out there. It does exist outside of my own understanding of reality. Living in the paradox is not easy, but it is finally put, very satisfying.

Apr 8 2011:
1. We are such small pieces of an unimaginably complex system.
2. We aren't as important as we think we are.
3. We are pretty amazing none the less.
4. Everything I know to be true is just an imperfect reflection of actual truth.
5. Nice people don't finish last, they just aren't as worried about being first.
6. Forgiveness is better for your health than revenge.
7. A degree is a piece of paper, and paper alone does not an education make.
8. You can control very little of this life so take advantage and follow your dreams when ever you can.
9. Travel is an amazing teacher.
10. We shouldn't shelter our children from failure but instead give them the tools to learn from it and emerge better for it.

Apr 9 2011:
Stephen, I was pondering nr 2 today, because participating in TED conversations has become a kind of addiction to me. But my fear is that I like it so much just because I feel important when I post here. And fool myself into wasting time trying to boost my ego.
So here I go posting this fear as well and pretend that it is important ;-))).......

Mar 26 2011:
1. Mid-morning television worldwide sucks.
2. On a sunny day or a dark night, I'd go for a regular Atheist-Joe to lend me a helping hand 'cause religious people have imaginary friend(s) and apparently so do the lonely 5-year-olds.
3. The Luxembourg park in Paris is the place to be on a sunny Saturday morning - a book and a cup of coffee (they also have free public wireless to make things even better).
4. Plosives are always lateral before a lateral in English.
5. Learning is fun but UNlearning is good for you.
6. Fear is good but only if you are being chased by an animal, a hateful human, a zealous priest or a survey taker.
7. I will never stop trying to be better at whatever I do and constantly feel I could have done more.
8. Clothes-wise, cotton beats polyester anytime.
9. BigBang, thank you for accidentally giving the humans the opportunity to exist - your random act of kindness will not be forgotten. ^^
10. Move away from the computer and stop surfing the net already. Procrastination is bad for you and you know it's TRUE that you have something better or more important to do!

May 4 2011:
1. Everyone wants to be happy.
2. Almost everything is cyclic. Seasons cycle through winters and summers. Moods cycle through joys and sorrows. Economies cycle through recessions and booms, states through war and peace.
3. People are very complex.
4. We all sit on gigantic hoards of memories. Random stimuli in the environment cause random memories to surface.
5. Everyone develops some sort of "philosophy" based on what life throws at them. This forms the basis of every decision they make.
6. Most people have suffered.
7. Cynicism is for cowards who won't dare hope.
8. Consistency is very difficult.
9. Habits are tough to kill.
10. Nobody seems to know where happiness hides. But some theories seem likelier than others.

May 5 2011:
Skanda, I so agree with Debra about your #2. It sounds strange to some western thought that time and history move that way, but get out of those cultures, and most other societies have some form of cyclical time. I could go on & on about this one! I like #3 also, because it reminds us that all people, everywhere, are more than just biology or sociology. It also reminds us to be careful in judging the motives of others.

May 5 2011:
Thanks for your comments guys. I'm always fascinated by how far you can go when you start looking at things this way. For instance we have planetary systems, with planets revolving around stars. Zoom into matter far enough, and suddenly you're looking at analogues of these systems (in the form of electrons whizzing around nuclei).

Mar 28 2011:
1. When I travel, even if it's just a day trip, I'm happiest.
2. People are pretentious for believing that they will every truly know, without a shadow of a doubt, whether or not there is a god or some form of higher power/being.
3. We are so much smaller than we would like to make ourselves out to be.
4. Education is the key to almost everything.
5. Society, politics, etc will always be flawed because we as individuals are flawed, and when you put a bunch of individuals together, their flaws escalate with each new person added.
6. We are all hypocrites.
7. We hardly ever learn from our history, and therefore we are playing the same basic game now that we did 1,000s of years ago.
8. We are overpopulating the Earth, and hardly anyone wants to deal with it. If we look at our population growth in the past 100 years, and then think of those dots as insect (cockroaches, for example) population growth instead of human population growth, people would freak out. We are the said cockroaches to the rest of the species on the planet.
9. I know very little, and it saddens me.
10. What is "the truth" to me today may not be "the truth" to me tomorrow.

Mar 28 2011:
I love 4. Education is the key to almost everything. In India, where I am from, it is one sure way, that people can make a break from the lower economic segments and towards a better quality of life

Mar 29 2011:
You are very wise, Monica. I especially love numbers 2, 4, 9, and 10. All are so true. As to number 2, I've been doing a lot of "soul-searching" lately in the way of religion, and this is what I've come to find. People can say that they do or do not believe that there is a God or gods or any kind of higher power, but no one really knows or will ever know. My heart wants to tell me that there is a God or gods or something up there, but my brain tells me that there isn't, that there can't be. And I've come to find that the brain is often a more reliable source than the heart, as cynical as that may sound. But I really don't know, and none of us do. I don't know if it makes people pretentious to believe that they do know though. If they are preaching what they believe and will listen to no other opinion, then maybe, yes, but I think a lot of people are raised with it so strictly that they can't break out of that mindset that there is or isn't a higher power or powers of some sort. That's what bothers me the most about religion - that hardly ever do we get to decide for ourselves what to believe. The people and societies that raise us decide, and it's so difficult to break free from that.

Mar 29 2011:
Why, thank you. :) I'm pretty young on here compared to most of the members, so I really appreciate that compliment. I have actually had the exact same thought process when it comes to religion. My heart wants there to be a God, which, because I grew up in Christianity, means there will be a heaven, therefore I will always exist. I will not cease to exist. Basically, that my life will not just be a little speck in time but rather that I will continue to "be". However, my head says this is most likely not the case, and I am merely a mortal being, as much as I'd like not to be. As far as being pretentious, I mean that in a way to say that we as humans both collectively and individually think we know more than we actually do (generalization), and to say that any single human knows with certainty whether or not there is a god (or gods) is giving human knowledge and placement in the universe too much credit. Then again, you could get into the theory of knowledge and look at how people know what they know and one could argue that it's not pretentious of them because of the ways they know what they know, but that would be a discussion way above and beyond the character limit on here. And, when I say people are pretentious, I mean that in an idealistic, philosophical way. I don't actually look at my religious friends and go, "Wow, you're so full of yourself and your confidence in your beliefs of God. How pretentious of you". I completely understand what you mean when you say people can't break from religion. I'd say Western religions are more geared towards not allowing people to make up their minds than Eastern religions, but I'm sure both have the characteristic of "this is what is true and this is what you'll believe" to a certain extent. I mean, they have to after all, because they're organized religions.

May 2 2011:
"but that would be a discussion way above and beyond the character limit on here" made me chuckle. I agree with you entirely that we think we know so much more then we possibly can with what we actually know for sure. Also there are people who truly know there is a god, people such as the pope. Just as there are people who truly know that there is not. These people evaluate all their knowledge and it proves to them that they are correct about what they think, but I'll give that they are pretentious.

Mar 29 2011:
I don't think she means that. But there are certain things that we consider truths now that may not always be truths. The time's are always changing, and everything has the capacity to change. Even if you took your example of stealing - in the future, for all we know, stealing could be seen as acceptable. It's not likely, but we don't know that it won't ever happen. I think more of what she means is that we may believe we have a certain knowledge about something, but that may one day change. For instance, centuries ago people believed that the earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the earth. These theories have since been disproved, so what people used to believe was the truth is no longer the truth. What we call truth can often be just an opinion or belief that isn't necessarily even provable, but that people feel so strongly about and trust in so faithfully, that we don't even realize that it may not be true.

Apr 17 2011:
No, I don't think she means that. I think Monica means that, as you grow and learn you leave the door open to revising you values and beliefs and have the courage to change them when you know they need changing.

Apr 4 2011:
People are made of their experiences: often people do not question what they are raised to 'know' until they are faced with extreme loss whether percieved, threatened, or actual

Remember with your number 2 question the power of example: we limit ourselves by judging the ability of another to change their world view/ a mind stretched to a new idea can never go back to it's original shape (famous quote by someone I'm bad with names) What took a while for me to really learn is the power of seaking first to understand, often people hold beliefs that they do not realize they carry that may be unrational and they dont see it until they say it and then try and rely on that belief at a later date.

#10 and overall
Congrats you are growing and doing a fantastic job of dismissing all that you know and challengingallthat society makes us believe, some day you will find that truths are meant to be everchanging but a solid set of personal values will keep the integrity of your changing beliefs and you will not be cast as a hypocritical like you see the world right now because you may value something but it is teething you honor more than that one thing you dismiss in a prioritization of those values. You are never wrong for doing what you value as long as your values are not based upon a fleeting emotion like anger, personal happiness and even pleasure.

Apr 6 2011:
I agree with number 7, but if you think about it it's not really that surprising, is it? You can read something somewhere or have it taught to you but in reality, I find that the most important stuff I learn comes from my mistakes. I mean, we only live for 70-80-90 something years and the further you go back in time the shorter this span gets, how're we supposed to learn so many of these things when we reboot ourselves all the time?

May 6 2011:
I agree. History has not to be a just subject, it has to be our DNA re-codification tool. Ancient cultures knew that passing knowledge through chants and stories leaded to better generations. We do not even talk about our own past mistakes to our children, worst being caught talking about our ancestors' mistakes. Recognizing to your children that we are fallible is a good start. Even better when we learn to ask for forgiveness from them.